


Wing Goo

by Ebhenah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Broken wing, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) is a Ray of Sunshine, Lance tried to be a good ally, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Minor Violence, Monstertron Exchange, WingedFolk!Keith, warrior pixie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 08:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20992025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: While trying to find something to keep the bugs out of his garden, Lance instead stumbles upon a Pixie with a broken wing.Keith can't quite figure out the odd surroundings he wakes in after an altercation with a crow damages his wing, but the human seems nice enough.





	Wing Goo

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2019 Monstertron Exchange (almost a month late! Yikes! My deepest apologies!!)
> 
> My giftee Ava gave me the prompt "Lance/Keith, Hurt-comfort. Lance finds WingedFolk!Keith in the forest, he has a broken wing and can't fly anymore" and this is what I came up with. 
> 
> I really hope you like enough that it was worth the wait Ava!

Little specks of light filtered through the trees, creating pretty patterns on the path but not doing a whole lot to illuminate the ground, which was irritating. Lance adjusted his hold on his phone, “okay, Pidge… what exactly am I looking for again?”

“An abandoned Fairy patch,” she said, and he could hear the clack of her keyboard, “yikes… yeah, it’s gonna be hard to mistake it for anything else. So, it will be a patch of dead plants anywhere from four to- holy crap- **twenty** feet in diameter, with lots of like… gross… dead bugs… and near the outer edge, there will be these like… ummm… they kinda look like teepees made of sticks and twigs and mud?”

“Okay… so I find one of those patches and just like… take a house? That seems weird.”

“Fairies eat bugs,” she explained, “if you are serious about not using pesticides in your garden, a Fairy house is your best bet- just make sure it is abandoned! You do not want to deal with pissed off Fairies! They are nasty when they’re pissed off… and they can like… spit this web stuff- god! Why do they tell kids that Fairies are so cute and pretty? This stuff is really gross! I am sooo glad I live in the city!”

“There are Fairies in the cities, too,” Lance pointed out.

“Yeah- in parks and shit. How much time do you think I spend in **parks** Lance?”

“Okay… valid point. You are definitely someone I would call ‘indoorsy’,” he picked his way through the underbrush that crowded close to the path, peering into the trees. For some reason, he’d thought this would be pretty easy, but in rural areas like this, the smaller magical people tended to steer very clear of the areas heavily populated by humans… and with new magical species revealing themselves all the time, he didn’t want to misstep and end up offending something they didn’t even know existed. Because… that would be exactly the kind of thing that would happen to him. Who knew how deep into the woods he was going to have to go before he found a Fairy patch?

“Also known as ‘sensible’,” Pidge grumbled, “and the more I learn about Fairies, the more sensible I realize I am. Holy crow did you know that they’ve been at war with-”

“Shhh!” Lance froze, gaze snagging on movement out of the corner of his eye. Just down the way, well clear of the path he’d abandoned, some of the underbrush rustled. Curious, he ignored Pidge’s indignant squawk, his thumb moving to cover the speaker on his phone. Another rustle, and something stumbled out of the weeds… no… not some_thing_! Some_one! _

A tiny man, not even as tall as his hand, dragging a bough that looked way too big for him to be able to manhandle like that. He pulled out some kind of blade and started hacking at the bough. Lance froze, awed by what he was seeing and not wanting to startle the little guy. He had wings. Four of them. Long and narrow, like dragonflies. Three of them were folded neatly against his back, looking like a shimmery, soap bubble cloak or something. The fourth stuck out at an odd angle and even from where Lance stood, he could see both the violent shiver that shook the delicate appendage, and the rather nasty looking kink near the middle of its length.

The small man… _the Fairy_... had moved on to a new job, shaving slivers off of the twig he’d harvested from the bough and bending and twisting them with obvious focus. Lance cringed when the Fairy reached back to grab the broken wing and pull it forward. What was he doing? That _had_ to hurt! He watched as small hands measured the sliver against the wing, trimmed it, and measured again. The process was repeated a few times and it was obvious that the small man was being very careful about getting the size right. Once he seemed satisfied, he folded the thin sliver of wood over the upper edge of the wing. Ohhh… Lance understood now- he was making a splint!

“Hey Pidge,” he whispered, inching closer, “uhhh… how would I know if I saw an actual Fairy?”

“What the hell, Lance?” He could _hear_ her eyeroll, it was so epic, but whatever. “It’s not hard. They are tiny people with wings! They stand about four inches tall, they look like _people_ and they have _wings_! Why??”

“Uhh…” he kept his voice down, slowly moving toward the man with the broken wing, “I think I see one. Crap! He sees me!”

The small, winged man had indeed spotted him, wheeling around to face him, tiny sword brandished with a flourish. “Yes, I can see you, you’re _massive_! I can hear you, too!”

“Shitshitshitshit! Pidge! What do I do to make friends with a Fairy??”

“Fuck! Uhhh… hang on… lemme see… umm… oh! Okay… first, make sure it is a Fairy!”

“Tiny person with wings, check,” he answered.

“Yes. Right. Umm.. tiny person with butterfly wings, definitely a Fairy-”

“Butterfly wings? No! Not butterfly wings. This Fairy has… like… dragonfly wings!”

“What?!?! No, dude, that impossible… dragonfly wings means… Shiiiiiit! Lance! Get out of there! That’s _not_ a Fairy! That’s a _Pixie_! They’re endangered and…”

“OW!” Stinging fire exploded into life in his ankle, stealing his breath and making him nearly drop his phone and when he glanced down he could see the glint of sunlight on metal shining up at him from the sword that was now embedded in his leg.

“I’m not a blasted _Fairy_!” shrieked the tiny swordsman, shaking with rage… or… maybe pain and exhaustion… given that he barely managed to finish his indignant protest before he collapsed in a heap.

“Lance? Lance! What the hell is going on?!?”

“Owwww… shit… oh wow, that _really_ hurts! Ummm… I’m okay. It’s fine. This is fine. Just… change of plans for the day.” Limping slightly, Lance pulled some hanging lichen from the trees around him and lined the fishing basket he’d brought to carry the Fairy house back to his garden in with it. Then he covered it with the kerchief he was wearing (because he had no interest in repeating the time he hadn’t covered his hair in the woods and came home to a freaking _beetle_ just chilling in his hair! Ewww… Nope! No thanks!). “Pidge, I need you to find me everything you can on Pixie first aid and broken wings!”

“What?? Why!?!? What did you do?? Did you _stomp_ a Pixie? Lance! They’re endangered! Protected by law! You can go to _jail_ if you stomp a Pixie!”

“I didn’t stomp him! He’s hurt. He was _already_ hurt when I saw him. Broken wing, I think. He just passed out! I want to help him.”

“Alright… okay… cool… yup… just… gimme a second… Alright! You _can_ fix a broken wing! I’m sending you the article, because it’s got like pictures and stuff… but you basically need to make a splint out of bark or leaves… it says the best thing is green wood- whatever that is- and it needs to be cut to size… Shit! You said he passed out? That’s a bigger issue- sugar drop. You need to keep him warm and get some sugar into him as soon as possible!”

“What?!?” He nearly shrieked, “why? What’s wrong with him??”

“Pixies have crazy fast metabolisms. They need to eat, like, all the damn time… like… hummingbirds or something. It says here that if they are alone, injuries are almost always fatal because it makes them burn calories even faster and then end up passing out and starving to death from otherwise minor wounds.”

“Okay,” he took a breath, “okay… I can deal with this. Calories. Right.” He had a granola bar in his fanny pack of snacks… but there was no way he could get this guy to _chew_... he needed something… liquid… like… “Juice! I’ve got juice!”

“Juice’ll work!” Pidge sounded almost as relieved as he was.

“Okay- good. I’m gonna… let you go so I can focus on this. I’ll call you when I get home, deal?”

“Deal! I’ll send you whatever information I can come up with. I can’t believe you found a freaking _Pixie_!!” Lance could tell she was shaking her head at him just from the sound of her voice as she disconnected the call.

Leg on fire, he gingerly lowered himself to the forest floor and pulled out a juice box. The skinny little straw would make a decent dropper. After a few failed attempts to get some nutrients into the guy where he lay, Lance very carefully picked him up and rested him on his thigh. He steadied his head with a gentle finger and dripped some of the apple juice into his mouth. Thankfully, he seemed to instinctively know what to do, swallowing down the juice without otherwise stirring. Lance counted to five and repeated the process. After the fourth drop, the Pixie made a pained noise and curled up.

Cold! He was cold! Lance couldn’t stay out here with him. He had to balance the need for calories against everything else. The only solution was the half-assed plan he’d had in the first place- he was going to have to take him home and deal with him there. Moving as quickly as he was able, he gathered up the slivers of wood, bundled the Pixie up in his kerchief and settled him in the basket amid the lichen, and removed the small sword from where it was still embedded in his leg.

Between Lance’s limping, and the frequent stops to provide more apple juice to the Pixie, the walk home was a long and tedious one. But, they’d made it there alive and the only casualty was Lance’s bloody sock, so he considered the endeavor a success.

* * *

Buried under several layers of cloth, Keith woke to a strange taste in his mouth and an ache in his wing, the throb of pain awakening his drowsy mind in a rush of memories. Stupid crow! Stupid wing! Stupid hu- ohhhh… _human_! There’d been a human! Quickly, he did some mental calculations to make sure he’d been far enough from Marmora to protect his clan.

He thought so.

Especially given humans’ penchant for never looking _up_ for some reason.

Okay, good. Next up- establish the current situation.

He was definitely not in the woods at the moment. The light was all wrong and the air tasted different. Gingerly, he sat up, taking a second to process the fact that he was in a bed.

A human-style bed… complete with blankets (which explained all the cloth, at least- not that he was complaining! Thankfully, the cloth kept him warm when he needed it).

A human-style bed that was _his size_.

What in the… He looked around. He seemed to be in some kind of… box? It _looked_ like a tiny version of a human house, with colorful walls and those square windows they liked, and even some furnishings… but some of the other furniture seemed to just be _painted_ onto the wall itself?

Humans made no sense. He’d already known that, but this really drove it home. Was he a prisoner? What was going on? It was hard to focus, hunger was already starting to gnaw at him and his wing was throbbing with a dull pain that sapped his energy. Carefully, he twisted, lifting the injured wing so he could assess the damage done by that damn crow.

Shockingly, it had been splinted! Decently done, too. A wide length of thin green wood had been soaked and folded over the cracked chiton and carefully sewn into position. It was human thread- thick and heavy- and the excess wood hadn’t been trimmed away beyond the stitching, so his wings were unbalanced, preventing him from flying, but it was tidy, precise work.

Some anxious thing in his gut relaxed. Humans were unpredictable, but some were quite kind, and he had a hard time believing that someone who wanted to keep him as a captive or oddity would have gone to all the trouble of repairing his wing when they could have clipped it and its mate and prevented him from ever being able to fly again.

Which meant… the blueberries on the platter at the foot of the bed were probably safe to eat. Thank the stars! He was starting to get dangerously hungry. Standing, he grabbed one of the ripe berries and took a bite. He explored the weird quarters as he ate, trying to make sense of it. There was a crack in the floor that ran the length of one entire wall, and when he traced it out, he discovered that it also cut clean through both of the connecting walls and the ceiling as well. Why? How?

It wasn’t that big of a gap, just barely wide enough for him to slip his fingers into, but without being joined to any of the other aspects of the structure, shouldn’t it be falling over? Was it magic? And why would someone paint a false mirror on the wall? Or a fake rug on the floor? None of the drawers in any of the furniture seemed to work, either. In fact, the furniture mostly seemed to be all molded, hard plastic in one solid piece. Useless. Like the painted clothes hanging in the painted closet.

The whole place seemed to be some kind of false representation of a human home. But… that didn’t make any sense. Why would someone have a tiny, useless version of their own home? He’d think that it was perhaps some kind of hospitality thing for visiting small fey, but logic would suggest that if someone was making human-style living quarters for Pixies and Fairies, they’d be _functional_... and if someone wanted small fey to be comfortable, they’d model the living quarters after the right kind of home, wouldn’t they?

Pixies lived in hanging pods high in the trees that resembled wasp nests. Keith loved the way they’d sway and move with the wind. He loved the smooth, warm cubbies and hollows within them and the way that his clan treated each of the pods as parts of a greater whole. He could crawl into any of them and sleep amid clanmates. They weren’t all split off into smaller groups the way that humans and Fairies lived. There wasn’t one specific pod that was his home, they _all_ were. They didn’t sun-dry berries and fruit on the treetops for their own singular use during the cold months, it was something they did as a group. They took care of each other. A Pixie clan made sure that no one was forgotten, or left behind. But… each and every Pixie was completely ready and willing to die to protect the Clan… which meant, if someone didn’t come home, no one went looking for them. It wasn’t a lack of care- quite the opposite.

No self-respecting Pixie would want any of their clanmates putting themselves in danger to mount a rescue.

Whatever the situation he’d woken up in was, Keith knew he’d have to navigate it on his own.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once and then the wall started to _lift_, sliding up, up, up. The painted image of wallpaper and decor vanishing through the roof, being replaced by a completely different painted wall and then… nothing. There was a bottom to the wall, and as it cleared higher and higher, Keith could see a much larger human room. “How’s the wing? I’ve never had to sew through wood before, but I do embroidery and I sew, so… I tried to make sure it was nice and tidy, at least. It’s silk thread, too… strong, but not too heavy. The internet said that weight was an issue… Sorry, I’m babbling. Let’s start over.” A face filled the gaping hole that used to be a false wall. A rather handsome face, actually, once you got past how gargantuan it was. “Hiiiii… I’m Lance. I tried to fix your wing. I hope I didn’t screw it up?”

“Uhh… no,” he shook his head, “you didn’t screw it up. We usually trim the wood to make it lighter, but you got the important parts right. So… thanks, I guess.”

“Whew, _that’s_ a relief! I was so worried I’d messed up and you’d be stuck with a wonky wing or whatever! I mean, I know you can still fly if you mess up one wing, but like, I have two kidneys and one can do the job but I’d still rather have both of’em working. Know what I mean?”

“Umm… maybe?” He cocked his head to one side, trying to make sense of this… _Lance_ person. “I think most people would rather not lose body parts… just… as a general rule.”

“Yes! Exactly! Good… I’m glad I made sense.” There was a loud scraping sound and Keith’s view of the giant face was replaced by an equally giant torso as Lance moved around. Cautiously, he edged closer to the empty space that used to house a wall, still eating the blueberry. Ohhh… there was a chair! That’s what that noise was! Lance was just sitting down.

Before long, Lance’s face was back in his line of sight, now propped up on his fist. “So, when you passed out, I fed you apple juice, and I tried to keep you warm, but you kept like… shivering, I guess? The best thing I could think of to keep you warm was this. It’s my niece's dollhouse, but the bed seems soft and I could set the whole thing on my radiator so you’d stay nice and toasty and I could give you more juice every fifteen minutes like the article said to and… Sorry. I babble sometimes. I’ll stop. What’s your name?"

“What’s a dollhouse?” he asked instead of answering the question.

“What’s a- you don’t know what a dollhouse is? Of course you don’t! Why would you know what a dollhouse is! Smart, Lance, real smart. Uhh… okay… a doll is a child’s toy. For imagination games… like… playing pretend? So, a dollhouse is a way for them to play pretend with the dolls. This is harder to explain than I thought… it’s like… a tiny house for children to play with, I guess?”

“I know what toys are,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. Still, there was something endearing about the guy, and as confused as he’d been when he woke, he couldn’t fault Lance’s logic- cold could be fatal to an injured Pixie, and he’d been comfortably warm. “You could have just said it’s a toy.”

“I didn’t want to assume you knew anything about human culture! I know that’s like… a whole _thing_ for some kinds of fae… that so few of us bother to learn about your cultures but expect you to know all about ours.” He shrugged, “I don’t want to be an entitled jerk…”

“So… you what? Researched Pixies? Because I’m pretty sure I remember you calling me a Fairy…” He couldn’t help the snarl of disgust on that last word.

“Yeah… about that… I’m sorry. I’m new to this area… Cuba- that’s where I’m from- it doesn’t have a very big population of small fae. Something to do with the bird population, I think… I’m not really sure. I should have paid more attention in school. Sorry- I’m babbling again, aren’t I?” He sighed, “yes. I researched Pixies so I could help you… and because… I guess I live near a community of Pixies? So, like… I should know more about my neighbors.”

Oh, damn. That was cute. Could giants be cute? Because… he was pretty sure Lance was cute… and he was huge. Like, even by human standards he seemed… taller? “Keith,” he said suddenly.

“Keith?"

“Yeah.”

“Huh? Oh! Your name! I asked you what you name was… and it’s Keith,” Lance nodded then paused. “Wait… Keith? Your name is Keith? Really? Huh. Keith. Okay.”

“Yeah… Keith is my name…” Why was that so surprising to him?

“Keith… I dunno… I guess I thought you’d have a name that wasn’t so… human-sounding…”

“Like what?”

“I dunno… like… Rowan, or Mist or something…”

“You realize that those are human words, right? Just as human as ‘Keith’.”

“Oh,” Lance deflated a little, “yeah, I guess you are right. Hey! How come I can hear you? Like, you sound normal volume. Shouldn’t I find you really quiet and you find me really lou-Oh no! I’m not like deafening you am I?”

“What? No, you are not deafening me!” He shook his head, “magic. I don’t even think about it… it’s something automatic that just… evolved, I guess. I never really thought too much about it.”

“Yeah, me either… but I’m glad I’m not busting your eardrums or whatever.” He smiled then, and Keith decided that, yes.. Giants could absolutely be cute- because Lance was downright adorable. “So… uh… you are welcome to stay here while your wing heals… but if you want, I can bring you back to the woods so you can get home… Just… the article says that you can go from okay to like… really _not_ okay super fast with a broken wing and that Pixies live like _way_ high up the trees and… that seems kinda dangerous and… okay… babbling again. Seriously, I’m not usually this bad for babbling.”

“It’s alright,” he answered, “I don’t mind it… and… I’m not going to be able to get home until this heals… I’m… off balance.” What? Why had he said that? That was… reckless. Sure, Lance seemed genuinely kind and concerned, but to reveal a vulnerability like that just… wasn’t like Keith. He could almost hear Kolivan tsking him for being too open.

“Oh… yeah… that’s probably because I didn’t trim the wood, right? Sorry. I didn’t know to do that… and I didn’t want to take too long because you’d get cold and…”

“If you were going to miss something, that’s the thing to miss,” Keith said, yawning. Healing was exhausting. He’d barely finished the berry and his full stomach was already signalling him to sleep while he had the fuel to make it safe to rest. “Mm... like I said before, you got the important stuff right.”

“Are you okay? You look… kinda wobbley…”

“Yeah… just… warm and full, so… sleepy…”

“Because of your wing! Right… I read that… okay, okay. Yeah. I’ll… uh… let you sleep. You want me to put the panel back? I thought it might help keep the heat in but if you are warm enough now… but then… privacy… so… whichever you prefer…”

“You can leave it off,” Keith said, already heading back to the weird human bed. “Not a big fan of sleeping in a box…”

“Oh… yeah… fair enough. Alright. So… you’ve still got a couple of blueberries for when you wake up… if there’s anything else you need, just let me know okay? I’ll be around.”

“Kay,” he answered, fighting to stay awake long enough to even get comfortable under the cozy fabric. “Thanks, Lance.”

“You’re welcome, Keith. Sweet dreams!”

* * *

Lance puttered around his living room, tidying up. He was still limping, despite the fact that the… uh… stab wound? Cut? Puncture? Whatever it was, it had stopped hurting. Actually, now that he thought about it, it was kinda numb… that was probably not a great sign. Right?

He glanced at the clock. It hadn’t been that long since he’d cleaned and bandaged it. Probably best not to peel the bandage off just yet. If it still felt weird later he’d take another look at it. In the meantime, he found a bunch of busywork to do that didn’t involve a whole lot of walking, and kept him close enough to check on the Pixie… Keith… to check on Keith periodically. He didn’t want to hover, and his (admittedly rushed) research said that once an injured Pixie had roused themselves and eaten, the risk of them experiencing another bout of sugar drop was low provided they were warm enough… but at the same time… it was hard not to.

Just… the start of this whole thing had been so… like… frantic and stressful. It was hard to switch gears now. That was all. Keith might be as tall as his hand, but he was clearly, like, an _adult_... and based on the fact that he had a sword, he was probably some kind of warrior. Pixies and Fairies were at war, after all. Plus, he’d been coherent and stuff when they’d talked… or rather, when Keith had talked and Lance had babbled like an idiot. Again- he was blaming that on the whole frantic chaos thing not quite wearing off yet.

That and the fact that Lance hadn’t had much interaction with any of the magical peoples that had started revealing themselves and it was really important to him that he not be an entitled jackass. He’d dealt with enough microaggressions when he’d moved here from Cuba to know how much they sucked, and he didn’t want to do that to someone else. So, after he rearranged his bookshelves, he returned to his research.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot of information about Pixies. There was _tons_ about Fairies, but almost nothing about Pixies. Maybe it was because Fairies lived on the ground and Pixies were up in the treetops? Or maybe Pixies were just… more insular? Regardless, all he was really coming up with was pretty basic information: lifespan, diet, biology, habitat… not much about their culture, which was what he was most interested in.

His phone chimed softly, letting him know that Keith _should_ have woken up to eat. Chewing his lip nervously, he glanced over at the dollhouse- no sign of movement. Damn. Should he wake him? Some voice in the back of his head whispered about waking sleeping babies. But Keith wasn’t a baby. He was a grown man. Just because he was small didn’t make him helpless. Still… he was injured… and with that panel off the dollhouse, he might not be as warm as he needed to be. If his temperature dropped enough while he was asleep he might just… not wake up.

That thought spooked him right out of his seat and had him hobbling to the chair he’d set up by the radiator. “Keith? Heyyy, Keith… you need to eat, bud,” he crooned, hoping that was enough to rouse him. “Wakey wakey!”

“Mmmrmmfff?” The Pixie sat up, blinking at him blearily, “whazzup? Oh! Right. Lance… something wrong?”

“You need to eat… or at least have some juice. At least… that’s what the internet says.” It occurred to him (possibly too late) that not everything you read on the internet was accurate. “If not… then… I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“No… it’s okay. I mean, it’s not dire, but I should eat something.” Keith yawned, rubbing at his face, “you are… kind of… umm… energetic, huh?”

Lance sighed, deflating a little, “sorry. Sorry… I know… I’m a bundle of nerves… You can say I’m a mess. I am obviously a mess. It’s just… you spooked me, okay? I’m like… _invested_ now… and that sugar drop thing? That’s really freaky… or… well… it probably seems normal to you, because like… if _is_ normal for Pixies… but it isn’t for… like… humans. We don’t… just drop like that unless it is really serious… but, on the other hand, it’s definitely pretty dangerous for you guys, too… so... Probably also a big deal… annnnnd I’m babbling again. Sorry.”

Keith stared up at him from the doll bed, “you apologize a lot for someone who saved my life and patched my wing… is that a human thing?”

Lance groaned, somehow, he’d managed to make a complete fool of himself over… he didn’t even know! It should not be this difficult to interact with the guy, but for some reason, Lance was… just… falling apart. “No,” he shook his head, “I’m just… frazzled or something, I don’t know.”

“Uh-huh.”

The Pixie had to think he was nuts. Lance realised that he was not exactly presenting his best self to the guy. He took a second to gather his thoughts as Keith grabbed another blueberry. “Okay… admittedly, I’m usually a bit… hyper and distracted, but… here’s the thing: I went into the woods today to find an abandoned Fairy house to put in my garden, because I don’t want to spray _poison_ on plants I plan to eat and they are supposed to keep bugs away. Instead… I found you… and you were hurt and… getting back here was stressful, okay? Then I tried to figure out the best way to help you, but like… there is almost no information out there and… it’s just been a weird day and I’m still kind of all ramped up from trying to make sure you got enough calories and didn’t get too cold as I came back here… and I was really worried I’d screw up and you’d, like, _die_ or something.”

“Well… I didn’t- and that’s thanks to you, so I think you can probably relax now,” Keith said after a moment.

“Easier said than done,” Lance grumbled, “so… uh… I tried to do some research, but… there’s not a lot of info out there, and I have no idea how to tell what’s good info and what’s bull… so, other than staying warm and having a steady supply of berries and stuff… what do you need to be, like, comfortable while you are healing up? I know the dollhouse is kind of weird-”

“Yeah… it’s weird, but… it kind of works,” Keith shrugged, “it’s not like you can just magic up a pod, so this’ll do. It’s comfortable enough, and I don’t need much- warm, safe place to sleep, food… and access to the outside- which might be a bit tricky without being able to fly.”

“I guess I could let you out when you needed… but that seems kind of shitty for you, and I want you to be able to come and go as you please! You’re a guest, not a prisoner…” Lance stood, scanning the room with an eye for a possible solution. The problem wasn’t _that_ difficult: a warm location for the dollhouse, with access to the outdoors that a grounded Pixie could utilize… oh! “I have an idea, but it will mean sharing a room.” He grinned, “the radiator in my bedroom is right below a window! It even has this like extra wide window sill that acts like a radiator cover, _and_ there’s a window box planter on the outside. I’m growing chamomile in it. Would that work? Or do you need to be able to get to the ground? I mean, I could probably rig up some kind of ramp or something if you need me to…”

“I don’t think you need to go that far,” Keith answered, “I just need to be able to get outside. The window box planter will be fine."

“Then it looks like we have a plan… roomie!”

It took less than ten minutes for Lance set everything up and hobble into his room with the dollhouse in his hands and Keith riding his shoulder, clinging tight to the fabric of Lance’s shirt for stability.

Now that the immediate crisis had passed, they settled into an easy routine while Keith healed. For several days, the Pixie mostly slept and ate, but bit by bit, he stayed awake a little longer between each meal/nap combo. Being able to get outside seemed to do a lot for his mood and energy levels, as well. Lance stuck close to home, just in case he was needed. He didn’t really have anywhere he needed to be anyway. He was taking independent study classes through a local university and so he worked from home most of the time, which served him well in this situation.

That did not mean he hovered, though (despite Pidge’s teasing)! He puttered in his garden, cooked and baked, did his studying, worked on the orders he had waiting for the studio, and just kind of hung out. Keith discovered a taste for the old B movies Lance loved and they’d often watch together. It was a little weird to hang out so much with someone the size of his hand, but not quite _as weird_ as he would have guessed. Keith wasn’t especially chatty, but didn’t seem to mind Lance’s tendency to think out-loud and ramble on. More than once, he’d inadvertently helped Lance with some point of study that wasn’t making sense to him.

The Pixie had a dry wit and a pragmatic outlook that was well suited for cutting through Lance’s sometimes overly dramatic mindset. They balanced each other out well, and Lance was starting to wonder how he’d ever gotten through a day without Keith there to bring his anxious mind back to reality. Seriously! Keith helped more than his prescription did!

He got along well with Pidge, too, joining in whenever Lance video-chatted with his friend. Lance was confident that if he was still around when Hunk got back from a family wedding, they’d hit it off, too.

He was just sending off an essay on the impact of tapestry on the understanding of political evolution through history to one of his profs when the tv flickered on. Glancing over, he saw Keith stomping on buttons on the remote. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t need your help to put on a movie,” Keith grumbled.

“Yeah- I can see that. Bored?” He shut the laptop and set it on the desk.

“Not really… just… that Blob double feature is about to start and you were pretty much done, so I figured I could save time…”

Lance glanced at the clock, and immediately hopped up, making his way toward the kitchen, “oooh! Yeah, you are right! Alright, you do that and I’ll grab us snacks!”

“No more blueberries!” Keith yelled after him.

He returned a few minutes later with microwave popcorn for him and a thimble of apricot preserves for Keith, settling on the couch. Keith climbed his sleeve and sat on his shoulder, accepting the thimble and makeshift spoon (part of the wide end of a toothpick). “Awww… no maple syrup this time?”

“You’re serious right now? The maple syrup was a mistake of epic proportions! You got shitfaced and tried to fight my cactus!” Lance laughed, “be glad you are getting that- I almost got you rose jelly, you know, to be thematic, but I figured that was more gross than funny.”

“Not my fault you didn’t know about Pixies and sugar,” Keith smirked, “and I’m an adult, I can get shitfaced if I want to.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to help you do it.”

“Keep it up and you’ll wake up with freshly pierced ears courtesy of my sword.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it- you know where I sleep. Can we just watch the movie now?” Gingerly, he lifted his throbbing ankle up and rested his foot on the coffee table. “I’m still dealing with the last time you stabbed me you violent fucker.”

“The last time I _ what_??”

“You stabbed me. Back in the woods, remember?”

“_No!_ I don’t _ remember!_ Shit! Lance… is that why you’ve been limping?” Keith was already on the move, kicking off from Lance’s shoulder to use his chest like a slide and then running down Lance’s leg like it was a bridge. Overall, the whole thing was very strange to experience. “Lemme see it!”

“Calm down, I barely even notice it unless I am walking, or just finished walking. I already cleaned it and bandaged it and stuff.”

“Let. Me. See. It,” Keith insisted, pushing at the cuff of Lance’s jeans.

“Alright, alright… Geez! You wanna back up so I don’t knock you over?” Once Keith cleared out of the way, Lance folded the denim back, slipped off his sock and peeled the waterproof bandage away. It was the first time he’d seen the puncture since he’d initially bandaged it and he hissed at the sight. He’d (mistakenly) assumed that since it wasn’t swollen, and there was no inflammation spreading out beyond the boundaries of the injury, that it was healing, just slowly because of the amount of movement in the ankle. It was… strangely UNgross- just a small tear in the skin, no blood or anything, but the skin surrounding it was black, and beyond that, his skin faded out to a pale grey. “What the fuck?!?!”

“I’m sorry!” Keith fretted, practically hopping around in his efforts to get a good look at the cut. “I didn’t remember hurting you! If I’d remembered, I’d have told you how to… anyway, too late now! Ummm… it’s been days… okay. Okay. This is okay. We can still deal with this here.”

“Keeeeeith? What the fuck is going on with my ankle?”

“So… umm… you know we are at war, right?” Keith’s wings clattered together softly, the sound reminding Lance of crickets. Distress. He remembered that from his internet research. That was a sign of distress in Pixies.

“With Fairies, yeah… I remember. Why?”

“Fairies… they’re predators… resilient and strong. So… uh… we coat our blades. With poison. It’s really fast… for Fairies. You are bigger, your pulse is slower… so it affects you differently.”

“You stabbed me with a poisoned sword?” he echoed in disbelief. “You stabbed me with a poisoned sword because I mistook you for a Fairy?!?! That’s… seriously intense!”

“I don’t know why I did it! I don’t _remember doing it!_” More wing chirping, and hopping around followed, and Keith tenderly poked at the very numb skin. “Alright… this isn’t so bad. We just need… no, you wouldn’t have that, so… nope… not that either. Which leaves, what? Oh! Ohohohoh!! Honey! Local and raw if you have it, but any will work! Do you have any honey?”

“Honey? Like the food? Yeah… I have honey.”

“Oh good! I need like… this much of it,” Keith pointed at the thimble, “and some… umm… oh! One of those white puffy things you use when you are anointing your face!”

“Anointing my… ohhh! A cotton ball! You want a cotton ball. Okay, sure. Be right back.”

“Try not to put too much weight on that foot!” Keith yelled at him as he left to collect what Keith asked for.

* * *

How could he have forgotten that he’d attacked his rescuer? How could he have assumed that Lance was limping because of a sprained ankle or previous infirmity? Why had he never asked? Thank goodness humans were so big and slow! From what he’d seen, either the toxin hadn’t made it into the bloodstream, or if it had, it was so diluted that it was pretty much harmless.

Lance returned with the stuff and and a dish of warm water, which Keith hadn’t even thought of. “For your hands,” Lance explained as he propped his foot on the coffee table again. Taking a deep breath, Keith returned his attention to patching up the human that had become so important to him in such a short time. The wound was deep, but not jagged. It looked like a pretty straightforward stab, just one that seemed to have his full strength behind it. What the blazes had he been thinking?!?!

Muttering to himself, he got to work. He packed the wound with as much honey as he could manage, then pulled the cot-ton-ball apart. Dipping the white fibers into the honey he plastered them over the wound, smoothing out each layer until he was satisfied with the dressing. “There,” he said proudly. “Now it will start healing! I need to do this again tomorrow though, and every day until the discoloration is gone.”

“You don’t have to,” Lance pointed out, “I can do it. Looks pretty simple.”

“I will do it,” Keith snarled, “I hurt you. I’m fixing it.”

“Yikes! Alright, alright. You can do it!” Lance shook his head, laughing softly, “I guess we are taking care of each other for the time being.”

“That’s uh… that’s what friends _do_ right?” he asked hopefully, trying to fight the dread that had settled in his gut. He’d stabbed Lance. He’d stabbed him with a poisoned blade. Lance had been in pain for _days_ because of him. He wouldn’t blame him in the slightest if he kicked him to the trees after this.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Keith had never been so happy to see a smile in his life! “Should I find us something else to watch? We’ve missed a good chunk of this already… and after the whole ‘honey’ thing, I don’t really want to watch murderous pink goop.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, relief making him giddy. “Let’s find something else to watch.”

They ended up watching a comedy about a talking teddy bear, with Lance cheerfully explaining all the cultural references that didn’t make sense to Keith in that animated way of his. Pixies, by and large, were a fairly reticent, quiet bunch. Lance was… very much not, and Keith found it fascinating. The way Lance could fill such a huge space with words and ideas was fascinating. The fact that he seemed to do it so effortlessly was amazing. He really, really needed to stop apologizing for it so much though! Every time he did, Keith felt something close to rage churn in his gut- because he wouldn’t apologize for it unless someone he trusted had taught him it was… something _bad_, something he should be ashamed of. That pissed Keith off, because he loved hearing how Lance’s mind worked. The way one thought led to another and then the subject jumped because he’d made five, ten, fifty connections so fast he couldn’t even track them.

Why would _anyone_ discourage that kind of joy of _thought_?

Lance’s enthusiasm for things was so contagious. Keith had never had any interest in human culture before, but Lance made it seem so engaging and dynamic, and just… _interesting_ that he caught himself listening raptly to every story, every theory, every passing thought. Keith had learned a ridiculous amount about fabric and needles and threads and this strange language of images sewn into cloth that humans had used for centuries but were now losing, because it was something Lance cared about, so it was something Lance _talked_ about… and when he did, his eyes lit up, his cheeks flushed- ruddy pink showing up under the warm brown of his skin, and his hands swooped and waved and wriggled in the air. It was beautiful and it made Keith think that maybe humans had magic after all… some kind of subtle magic that created a kind of… shared dream.

He’d never met anyone like Lance before, and he doubted he ever would again. He had a feeling that Lance was one of a kind.

Every morning, he checked on Lance’s ankle, changed the dressing, and then joined him in the kitchen for some breakfast. Every time Lance left the house, he returned with something that made life navigating the human home a little easier for Keith. It never seemed to be a planned outcome of his errand, either. He simply spotted things and his ingenious mind thought of some way that it could be used to make their shared space more comfortable for Keith.

He started helping Lance with his garden. It gave him lots of outdoor time and sunshine, and pulling weeds was even more of a workout for him than it was for Lance. Being out in the fresh air among plants was good for his healing too. Pixies didn’t do well when they were kept indoors too much. As nice as the private window box planter was, the garden was better. It wasn’t treetops, but it was good.

“So… umm… How is your wing?” Lance asked him one afternoon. It was raining, so they hadn’t gone out to the garden. Instead, Lance was working on something called ‘a commission’ that looked exactly the same to Keith as ‘a personal project’ and ‘a sample for class’. As far as he could tell, all three of those phrases described the same thing- Lance sitting in the rocking chair that had ‘the good light’ and spending ages sewing with different colors until he made a picture on the fabric stretched tight over a wooden hoop. “I haven’t really been doing a lot of checking… and you haven’t complained or anything… but, you should be almost healed up, right?”

Keith stopped sharpening his sword and cocked his head to one side, trying to understand why Lance seemed nervous about that. “Almost, yeah,” he answered, “why? Are you impatient to get rid of me?”

“What?!? No! Not at all,” Lance shook his head, his arms flying wide, the ‘commission’ falling into his lap as he gesticulated. “No, no, no- you are welcome to stay as long as you want… even… you know… after. Or, to come back for visits sometimes. That would be cool, too.”

“Then what’s up?”

“Umm… I guess I’m just nervous that I screwed something up? I mean, I’ve never patched up a Pixie wing before, and it’s hidden under the wood, so…” He trailed off, biting his lip in that way he did sometimes, “I really hope I didn’t make everything worse.”

“Lance, you saved my life. Even if the wing is a mess, I’ll still be able to fly… and I’m _alive_. I’m alive because of you. Okay?"

Lance nodded, visibly trying to calm himself down, “yeah… okay… it’s just… Sooo, I might have been fretting about this a bit, so I went online-”

“-I thought you were going to avoid internet research because you didn’t trust it?”

“Yeah, I was, and then it was three in the morning and I had a question and I feel down a google-hole, so sue me!” He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Keith, “anyway, the internet said that the stitches would leave holes in your wings. Is that true?”

“Mmm… yeah. The chiton veins heal, but the really thin stuff that connects it all doesn’t. So, there’s going to be punctures from where you sewed me up. But that’s fine, Lance.” He really wanted to reassure him, the poor guys seemed so stressed out. “Like I said, I’ll still be able to fly.”

“Yeah… I know… it’s just… there’s this _stuff_. It’s like… a gel, I guess? It patches the holes. So… I ordered some. To fix the holes in your wing. Some of that gel stuff.”

“Uh-huh,” he said slowly. He’d never heard of anything like that, and it seemed weird that humans would have a product for Pixie wings. “_Why_ is there… gel stuff… to patch holes?”

“It’s kinda cool, actually,” Lance said, his bright mind catching on the slight shift in subject. “So, there’s this organization- it’s like a subset of a University department that studies the newly revealed magical species, and they specifically focus on winged-uhhh… that gets really convoluted and it’s not important. What _is_ important is that since Pixies are… like… officially a ‘diminishing population’ or whatever, these experts figured that even though losing _one_ wing isn’t that awful, it would probably… like… boost survival rates if you guys could actually _fix_ a damaged wing. Cool, huh?”

“Sure… I guess. Seems kind of strange that there are humans out there studying us and trying to come up with ways to protect the population. You guys could just ally with us against the Fairies… they know that, right?”

“In theory, yeah… but that would be a political nightmare and take years. This… it’s a small thing and has nothing directly to do with the war.”

“Humans are weird,” Keith said, turning his attention back to his sword.

“No arguments from me on that,” Lance chuckled, “but at least this time, the weird ends up helping you!"

“You… really got some of that stuff? For my wing? Really??”

“Yeah, Keith. ‘Course I did. Friends help each other out, right?”

“Friends… yup… Friends definitely… help each other out,” he echoed, distracted by the strange warmth in his chest at that thought. “Thank-you.”

* * *

Nerves jangling, Lance held his little crane-shaped scissors and took a steadying breath. “Ready?”

“For the _third_ time,” Keith sighed, rolling his eyes, “yes, I’m ready.”

“Okay.” He took another breath and let it out slowly, “I’m going to snip each stitch. That should make it easy to remove the splint. I bet you are excited to fly again, huh?”

“Yes, Lance… I’m downright impatient, soooo,” he made a rolling gesture, prompting Lance to smile, because Keith had picked that up from him. “Can we get on with it now?”

“Right! Sorry! Sorry… I’ll just… do that, then.” Pushing his nerves aside, he slipped the point of one blade of the scissors between the wood and the silk thread, snipping it easily. For some reason, once he’d made that first snip, the nerves fizzled out and he made it through all the others easily. “Okay! Done- now what?”

“Now… I loosen up the splint,” Keith said, already moving to work his fingers underneath the wood. Lance itched to help, but he knew that it was a pretty delicate procedure and one wrong movement could rebreak the wing and undo all the progress Keith had made in his healing.

It felt like it took forever. It was agonizing to watch Keith slowly, slowly, slowly, pull the hardened wood away from the freshly healed wing- first in the front, and then, with considerable contorting, the back of the wing. Eventually though, Keith was sliding the loosened wood up the length of the dragonfly-like wing and letting it drop to the counter he was standing on. Soft chattering rose up as Keith rubbed his wings together experimentally. “Good?” Lance asked, his voice soft and almost timid.

“Mmhmm,” sighed Keith, wings flicking around like he was getting used to them again. “I’ve missed this,” Keith said, laughter lacing his words as his wings sped up. They blurred together and generated enough lift for Keith to rise into the air above the kitchen counter. The soft laughter morphed, shifting into something triumphant and glee-filled and for the first time, Lance got to see what a Pixie in flight looked like.

How on earth were the Fairies winning that war? Keith zipped around the kitchen so fast that Lance could barely track him. He shot straight up, wings stilling when he was barely a hairsbreadth away from the ceiling and immediately shifting into a dive that shaved a solid year off of Lance’s life. Another crowing laugh sounded just when Lance was sure Keith was going to crash and he zoomed off toward the living room. He spun and rolled in the air. He did freaking loop-de-loops! Joy bubbled out of him and when he pulled up in front of Lance’s face to hover effortlessly, his expression was so blissed out that Lance couldn’t help but giggle along with him.

Now he understood why the people that studied Pixies were so passionate about saving them- not that he didn’t understand before… because… genocide and extinction were just… _bad_ as a general rule. But this… this was different. This was… magical. Like, obviously it was magic. It was a tiny flying person! But it was _magical_ in the poetic sense, too. “Having fun?” he couldn’t resist teasing Keith a little. It seemed so out of character to see him so giddy.

“So much fun,” Keith answered, planting his hands on his hips and doing a little backflip, like Peter freaking Pan.

“I’m glad to see that I didn’t mess your wing up worse,” admitted Lance, “I was really worried that somehow I’d be the reason you couldn’t fly- even though I know you could still fly with three wings.”

“You did a great job, Lance. I’m a bit wobbly, and my turns and acceleration are kinda sluggish, but really- it’s barely different at all, even with the stitching holes.”

“The stitching holes! We can fix that! I got the stuff, remember?” He rushed to the cupboard, pulling down the little glue-pot of Wing-Goo. Why they decided to call it ‘Wing-Goo’ he’d never know, but they had, and he’d bought it… so… Yeah. “Okay… this says to _thinly_ spread an even layer on each side of the damaged wing, being careful to cover each gap in the wing… and then it stresses that it needs to be a thin layer. Jeez- okay, we get it! Thin layer!”

Keith zipped back and forth excitedly as he broke the seal on the little can and honestly, as adorable that was, it was also distracting as hell. Because… Lance liked Keith. He really did. Like he _really_ did. He liked the dry humor and the quiet determination that made up so much of his personality. He liked the sarcastic way he’d talk to characters in movies, and the way he’d pretend he understood jokes he had no way of understanding when he decided he’d already asked for too many to be explained. He liked the ferocity that tended to leak out around the edges of his manners when he got worked up about something. He’d really enjoyed sharing his home with Keith while he recovered… and like _obviously_ it could never be more than a friendship- Lance was six feet tall, and human; whereas Keith was a Pixie that lived in treetops Lance could never reach... and… you know… shorter than a Barbie Doll! There’s no way that could work as anything more than a friendship, but friendships were good. They were important in their own right- but Lance had never seen Keith so happy and enthusiastic and it was downright endearing and that was kinda _bad_ for the whole ‘keeping things in perspective’ thing he really needed to keep at the forefront of his mind.

There was a paintbrush thing attached to the underside of the cap, presumably intended to be used to spread that thin layer of the stuff on the wing. As small as it was, Lance immediately saw an issue- two in fact. The first was that the brush seemed to be as wide as Keith’s entire wing. It didn’t seem like the best design choice, all things considered. It was clunky and cumbersome, and the brush was so short that width of the cap completely hid the brush from almost all angles. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world- Lance had other paintbrushes kicking around that would do the job much more easily, it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to package the stuff this way. The second issue was trickier… the pearly blue, translucent ‘goo’ was much thicker than he expected it to be. He’d been picturing something similar to hair gel, or aloe gel… this was… _not_ that. This was gloopy.

Gloopy, and weirdly rubbery… and kind of viscous?

It was gross, is what it was. It kind of reminded him of the time his sister tried to make Turkish Delight and failed so spectacularly that Hunk had legit _cried_ when he’d seen what she’d created.

“You’re supposed to smear _that_ on my wing?” Keith asked, disgust dripping from every word, “that looks like… nope… not even gonna say what it looks like… just… believe me, it’s not a good thing!”

“I think… maybe we got a defective jar,” Lance whispered, disappointment crushing him. “I really can’t see any way to get a thin layer out of this. Not with such a small area to work with. Like… your wings are already so delicate and thin… this seems like it would be way too heavy. I’m… Keith… I am _so sorry_... I really thought this would work.”

“Lance, it’s okay,” Keith said, but Lance could hear the lie in his voice, he was just as disappointed as Lance was. “I just need a little time to get used to the…”

“To the damage,” Lance finished for him, “the damage that I did to your wing.”

“You _fixed_ my wing, Lance. The stitching holes were unavoidable. You know that.”

“I wanted to fix _this_, too,” Lance muttered, glaring at the Wing Goo like it could thin itself out under the weight of his gaze.  
“You said something about it being too small an area?”

“Yeah- like, proportionately, this stuff is going to be really heavy on your wing. If you were, say, my size, your wings would be thicker and I could make… like… narrower borders around the holes, if that makes any sense… instead of covering pretty much the entire upper arch with the stuff.”

“How long does it take the stuff to dry?” Keith flew closer, like he was trying to read the label himself, even though Lance was pretty sure he couldn’t read english.

“Umm… thirty to forty-five minutes, according to this… but if we got a defective batch it could take longer.” He set the stupid can down again. He knew he should be focused on how happy Keith had been to be able to fly again- and that was _seriously_ amazing to witness, no lie- but somehow he felt like he’d failed him.

“Your size would be easier, though, right?”

“Yeah, Keith, if you were my size it would be easier.” Honestly, that applied to a lot of things that were rattling around in Lance’s head lately.

“Oh…” Slowly, Keith drifted downward until his feet touched the floor. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry Keith, really I-” He turned his head to reread the label again, just in case he’d missed some kind of ‘lift tab for more information’ thing (he hadn’t) and when he turned back, whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips.

“So… umm… hi,” Keith blushed, shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

“_Holy shit!!_” His brain was stalled out, trying to process what he was seeing. Keith…

Keith was…

Keith was _big_!

“You… What? How?” He spluttered, trying to string words into something close to sense, “you’re… oh my God!”

“I’m your height,” Keith laughed, nervousness lacing his voice, “more or less… is that okay?”

“Okay?? Of course it is okay! But _how_!?!?” Unable to resist the impulse, Lance reached out to touch Keith, needing to prove to himself that this was real. His hands brushed over strong shoulders, then lifted to cup Keith’s face… which was… pretty close to perfection. Unfairly close to perfection, actually. It was weird how the details of his features had kind of blurred because of the difference in their heights. Now though, he could make out every tiny nuance to Keith’s face. Thick, expressive brows. Huge, uptilted _purple_ eyes framed by inky lashes. A delicate nose, high cheekbones, narrow jaw… and a very familiar smirk.

“Magic?” Keith laughed, starting to relax a bit, “cuz I’m a Pixie and I have magic… remember?”

“You look so different! Your eyes are purple! I didn’t know you had purple eyes!”

“You look different, too,” he answered, “I can barely see your freckles now, they’re so tiny…”

“Why didn’t you tell me you could do this?”

Keith shrugged, “I couldn’t until my wing healed. It takes a lot of magic, too. We don’t do it often. Feels… weird… kinda like being underwater…”

“This is… _amazing_! You’re amazing!”

“Sooo… you think you can try that stuff out? My wing’s bigger now, right?”

Oh… damn… that shyly hopeful expression was just… _not fair_! How was he so _cute_?!?! “Yup,” Lance answered, nodding stupidly. “I can… yup… definitely… the wing! Lemme see!”

“Great!” His whole face lit up and Lance was starting to think that this whole ‘Keith is human-sized’ thing was specifically designed by the universe to torture him because completely normal ‘Keith’ things were suddenly more attractive than they had any right to be.

He grabbed the Wing Goo and Keith turned around, giving Lance a good view of his wings for the first time, since they’d been folded down along his back since the size shift. “Oh… wow,” he breathed, “so many colors! Holy crap, Keith- your wings are insane! I’ve never even seen some of these colors before!”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve seen my wings, Lance,” Keith answered, trailing off into a nervous little huff of laughter.

“I know, I know… I guess they are just reacting differently to the light now, or something. Okay, can you lift them?” The shimmering, multi-toned wings spread and Lance winced at the row of marble-sized holes that marched along the upper curve of the chiton. Reflexively, he traced his finger along the curve that he’d repaired, trying to locate the healed break. The wing trembled under his touch, making him jerk his hand back, “sorry! Sorry… did that hurt?”

“Umm… no… it feels kind of like something touching my ear… not quiet a tickle. Didn’t hurt, just surprised me.”

“Alright…” Lance took a deep breath, deciding that this was absolutely, one hundred percent _not_ the time to be thinking about what that might mean. Instead, he focused his attention on the rather icky task at hand. The size of the brush and cap was less of an issue now, and he had to wonder if it was just _assumed_ that the Wing Goo was to be used on the Pixie in this form. “Here we go,” he said before touching the weird blue _stuff_ to Keith’s wing.

Keith let out a little squeak and muttered something Lance was pretty sure was ‘cold’, but the gloopy stuff smoothed out much more easily than he anticipated. Amazingly, it stretched in a kind of sheet over the gap in Keith’s wing, and when Lance made a second pass over the lower edge of the injury the sheet held steady and the excess ‘goo’ was swept back up onto the brush. “Is it working?”

“Yeah,” he answered, surprise making his voice a bit shrill, “it’s totally working! Keith! This is working!”

“Yes! Okay, do the rest of them!”

It took a surprisingly short amount of time to coat both sides of Keith’s wing with the pearly blue… stuff. “Last one,” he said encouragingly, flashing a smile at Keith, since painting the front of his wing meant they were facing each other again. “Then we just need to wait for it to dry… but I’m going to check the back again to make sure there’s no drips or whatever. Good?”

Keith nodded, the movement a little stiff, “yeah. Sure. That works.”

“Sorry, I’m guessing this probably feels pretty gross. I’m trying to be quick, I promise!”

“No,” he shook his head, the fine black hair fluffing up adorably with the movement. “It doesn’t. Feel gross, I mean. It’s… uh… not gross.”

Lance snorted and rolled his eyes, skirting around Keith to inspect the back of his wing. “Real convincing, Pixie,” he teased, skimming the brush along the lower edge of his earlier work. The wing twitched, and he could see the unfamiliar muscles that controlled the movement of the wings shift and bunch beneath the skin. Keith was kinda ripped… which was something that was definitely _not_ obvious when he was his usual height, but was pretty impossible to miss at the moment. It was downright distracting.

“It’s the truth,” he squawked in protest, wing twitching again. This time the stiff upper edge knocked against Lance’s hand, his palm sliding along the smooth surface. “It’s not gross… it’s… just… odd. I’m not used to someone touching my wing so much. Or, you know… at all.”

“At all? Shit- Keith is it some kind of huge social screw up or something?”

“No- but, even if it was… How else would you be able to repair the wing? It would have to be an exception, right?” Taking a breath, Keith squared his shoulders, “how does it look?”

“Good? I think. It’s as thin a layer as I could manage… and it looks like some spots are already starting to dry… I thought there were a couple of like little holes or bubbles or something, but… it just dries pretty clear.”

“That’s a relief… I’d much rather not have blue splotches on my wing if I didn’t have to.”

“Keith!” He gasped playfully, practically dancing around his guest-slash-roomie, “is that… _vanity_ I hear? Do you actually _care_ what you look like?”

“Jackass,” Keith muttered, shoving him.

He hadn’t been expecting that- or prepared for the amount of _strength_ in that push. A noise that was embarrassingly close to the shrill shrieks of his niece at the Haunted House event she’d _insisted_ she was ‘growed up’ enough for (she was, most assuredly, _not_ ‘growed up’ nearly enough!) escaped him as he faltered, trying and failing to regain his balance. Reflexively, he grabbed Keith’s (seriously beefy- _holy shit!_) shoulders for stability.

Lance wasn’t the only one with reflexes, either, it seemed, as Keith’s hands shot out, lightning fast, to catch Lance before he toppled. One hand gripped his hip, and the opposite arm wrapped solidly around his ribs. In a blink, he went from falling to very snugly and securely pressed against Keith- chest to chest. “Ummm…”

“Sorry…” Pink dusted over Keith’s cheekbones and before Lance’s eyes it darkened into a blazing red that looked positively painful. “I’m used to only being able to shove people with wings… I… didn’t… think…”

“You’re blushing,” Lance responded, his brain apparently having given up any semblance of control over his mouth and the things that escaped it. “God, how does that make you hotter?”

“What??”

“Nothing!"

“Lance!”

“Keith!”

“Did you… did you just… did you say… _hotter_?” Somehow, Keith’s blush intensified, “didyoujustcallmehot?”

Lance scoffed, rolling his eyes for good measure. Then he did it again, just to make sure he got the point across. “Me? Nooo!”

“Sooo… you _don’t_ think I’m hot?” He sounded… disappointed. Was he _disappointed_?? Why!?! Why would he be disappointed!?!?

“I… dunno what you’re talking about.” He tried for a confident smile, which… probably didn’t quite make it into being… because he noticed that Keith’s eyes were flicking between Lance’s own and his lips… like… like… like he was thinking about kissing him. Was Keith thinking about _kissing him_? Because… seriously? Yes, please! “Keith?”

Keith’s arm tightened around his back and there was no way he didn’t notice the way Lance’s heart pounded when he did that. No way. Especially since the whole flick-up-flick-down thing his eyes were doing kicked up in speed and that blush kind of melted into a smile that hinted at really awesome things. “Lance?”

“Keith…” He figured that his brain had just given up the ghost on controlling his movements as well as his words sometime in the last few minutes. Somehow, his hands had moved from where they’d been clutching at Keith’s shoulders so that now his fingers were slipping into inky hair, brushing over the little bumps and notches of his spine and the back of his skull, the pale skin warm and inviting under his touch.

“Lannnce…” the purple eyes drifted shut on something that sounded very, very promising. Something like… a sigh… Keith tipped his head back with a tiny side to side motion that was pretty obviously meant to encourage the tiny motions of Lance’s fingers. Lance was just a little taller than Keith like this, so it also lifted his chin… offering up those softly parted lips… and Lance? Lance was enthralled.

Weak.

Gone.

Lost.

Keith’s kiss tasted like berries and maple and honey. It tasted like summer and forest and magic. Lance couldn’t remember moving, but he must have, because he could remember the surprised little jolt before Keith _melted_ into the kiss. The hand at his hip vanished and then Keith was cupping his face- the touch so tender and light that Lance couldn’t have stopped the shuddery sigh that escaped him if he tried… and he had no thought of trying to stop it.

Eventually, the smiling won out over the kissing, lips refusing to co-operate with anything that wasn’t a huge, smitten grin. A giggle bubbled up through Lance, tickling the inside of his chest and his spine until he wanted to squirm with besotted glee.

“So… um… hi,” Keith said again, and this time his blush seemed completely different.

“Hey,” Lance answered, resting their foreheads together, “I’m still taller than you.”

“Kinda sad that that matters so much to you, human,” Keith answered, smirking at him.

“Listen, Pixie, I saved your life,” he countered, nose scrunching up with happiness, because… that was the best. Decision. Ever. “Annnnd I fixed your wing!”

“True… my wing is all better now,” Keith said softly, “I can go home.”

“Yeah… I guess you can- wait! You’re not… _stuck_ like this are you?”

He shook his head in a tiny motion, “not forever… just… a day at a time.”

“So… you are _almost_ as tall as me until tomorrow this time?” Lance asked, hope buoying in his chest after the crushing weight that had been realizing that Keith was _leaving_ for real.

“Mmhmm… which means I can’t go home just yet… Marmora isn’t built for human-sized Pixies.”

“Neither is the dollhouse.” He played with Keith’s hair, marvelling at how soft it was, and the way he swayed into the touch.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to find _some_ place for me to spend the night.”

Oh, those purple eyes were dangerously expressive, but Lance found that he couldn’t resist the playful heat they held, “I think I know just the spot… Just don’t hog the blankets.”

“You can deal with it for one night, Lance,” he laughed, “I’ll make it worth it.”

“Oh, gotta say, I like the sound of that, Keith,” smiling, he brushed their noses together and sighed. “It’s going to feel so empty without you here,” Lance whispered, freezing when he realized what _exactly_ he’d just said.

“Well… ummm…” Keith cleared his throat, thumb tracing over Lance’s jaw, “I could always visit… if I had a reason to…”

“A reason to?” He grinned, liking where this seemed to be heading.

“Mmmhmmm… you know… like… someone special… to see…”

“Special… like… a boyfriend, maybe?”

“Or even just a friend… but yeah… definitely someone… _like_ a boyfriend.” Smiling shyly, Keith rocked up onto his toes, kissing Lance again. There was no trace of the shyness that had colored the smile in that kiss though. It was confident and hungry, still tasting like berries and magic and summer, but making Lance’s head swim and his pulse race and his knees threaten to go weak on him.

“A boyfriend,” Lance echoed tenderly when the kiss finally wound down into soft, delicious, little nuzzles against his throat and warm hands tucked up under his shirt to roam over his back. “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Keith lifted his head, beaming at him when Lance nodded his confirmation, “me, too. C’mon… let’s go make sure there’s room for both of us in that perfect spot you mentioned.”

Laughing, giddy with the promise of what the future held for them, Lance let Keith tug him through the house to the bedroom. As they tumbled onto the soft mattress and the afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees, creating pretty patterns on Keith’s skin and hair and showcasing all the gorgeous, iridescent colors of his wings, Lance couldn’t help but be glad that his search for a fairy house to keep the bugs out of his garden had turned out the way it had.

**Author's Note:**

> This was loosely inspired by Kim Harrison's urban fantasy book series "The Hollows". I absolutely adore the character Jenks who is a Pixie, and I couldn't resist the urge to incorporate some of the elements of her universe. I don't think there is nearly enough similarities to call this piece a crossover, though and I hope it is read as the mild homage it was intended to be.


End file.
